The Doors to Europe are Opening

According to the U.S. State Department, Romania remains a primary source country for sex and labor trafficking across Europe.

We must act in Romania, but also across all of Europe. This is not a local problem. Women and girls are being taken from Eastern Europe all over the continent.

Each door that opens in another country means more opportunities to prevent and stop trafficking and to bring rescue and transformation to survivors of these horrors. Join us in blanketing nations with the message of freedom!

78% of victims in Europe are Romanian and 86% of victims found in UK brothels are Romanian.

EU Anti-trafficking Day is recognized each year on October 18. The day's main purpose is to raise awareness and increase the exchanges of best practices from different people working in the anti-trafficking field.

Today—and every day—we, at Uncaged, are committed to sharing our knowledge with abolitionists everywhere. Working with ally organizations means we share the work. We all want the same thing - to say, “Slavery no more!”

Here's a look at a few ways we are extending the Freedom Highway across Europe and how partnerships are helping us spread the message and build a road survivors can follow back to The Sanctuary:

• We are working with The Romanian Ministry of Transportation to install TV monitors in strategic train stations and airports across Romania. This is a huge step in educating the general public in Eastern Europe about the trafficking happening in their countries and across their borders!

• We are proud to be piloting a program in Romania to provide educational material for school-aged children to keep the most vulnerable safe! We are working to get materials to 250,000 children in Romania and preparing translations in additional languages. Prevention is happening and we’re ready for the next move!

• Uncaged European Director, Beni Lup, had the opportunity to speak at the World Evangelical Association to people from over 50 nations! He spoke to them about the urgency of the fight against human trafficking. We believe the church can be a big part of the solution!

• Just this year our team has engaged with over 2000 volunteers and workers, training them in trauma-informed methods of prevention and healing. To date, we have trained people in three countries this year.

• We had the opportunity to train church leaders and members on how to identify traffickers and how to recognize survivors. Many told us they wanted to volunteer to be part of this work. They told us they have family in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. “Our families are very much aware of many Romanian and Moldovan girls being trafficked in their countries and all over Europe,” they said. We must be ready to respond to this opportunity. Thousands of survivors are waiting! Thanks to your support we’ve been able to do prevention training with students, children, and adults. We’ve trained border patrol, police officers, social workers, and teachers in prevention, intervention, and legal assistance.

Today, as the world looks to the reality of trafficking in Europe we invite you to work together with us. Every gift, no matter how big or small, helps build the Freedom Highway.

Open the door to freedom today. Be the key!

We Could Reach Hundreds of Thousands a Day with the Message of Prevention!

Have you ever heard messages over train or airport intercoms telling you to say something if you see something? Have you seen signs in bathrooms indicating how to reach out for help if you are being trafficked?

These are vital parts of prevention and rescue! While these measures may be common in the West, they are not in Eastern Europe. Suppose we do nothing to educate travelers and staff at border crossings about human trafficking. In that case, we are allowing a major pipeline to remain open. This is how thousands of women and girls from Eastern Europe are being trafficked!

Earlier this year, we were filming the real-life story of prevention in action (don’t miss this story below)! We were with members of staff and the film crew in an airport in Romania. When the airport staff heard the anti-trafficking knowledge saved two girls from slavery, they said, “We need this here!”

The door opened for us to work in partnership with the Romanian Ministry of Transportation!

We are working with them to install TV monitors in strategic train stations and airports across Romania. They will show videos on trafficking awareness, safety information, and directions to safe spaces within the train station and airport. Most importantly, we will be able to tell victims how to connect with our organization by phone. This is a huge step in educating the general public in Eastern Europe about the trafficking happening in their countries and across their borders!

Romanian nationals want to stop traffickers from succeeding in their schemes and to protect their people. By partnering with them and working with the Ministry of Transportation, we can reach a large audience, including potential victims and travelers with vital information! They will be equipped to actively prevent trafficking. We want survivors to know that there is a safe space for them and that there are people who care. Remember 78% of survivors found in Europe are Romanian.

The strategy we’ve outlined will install TV monitors that the Ministry will maintain, so we are working hand-in-hand with Romania in this ambitious effort! We are starting with 10 screens in a major train station and airport that will reach 48,000 travelers a day!

We're asking people like you to help us with phase two of our project within a year. This phase involves putting up screens, making videos and signs, recording messages for the loudspeakers, and training airport staff. Our goal is to do this in three airports and 16 train stations. This could help around 448,000 travelers every day learn about stopping trafficking and staying safe.

The Key Abilities of an Anti-Trafficking Advocate

The ever-growing Freedom Highway is an alliance of people across Europe who are committed to working to prevent trafficking and to identify and support survivors of human trafficking.

Each member of the Freedom Highway needs the knowledge and confidence to know the signs of trafficking and how to respond.

1. Recognize Trafficking

The first key ability these anti-trafficking advocates need is the ability to recognize trafficking. For prevention, this means they know what common schemes a trafficker will use to lure vulnerable people into a situation they cannot escape. For freeing a survivor, this means they need to know the tell-tale signs of a person caught in trafficking.

What do you think some of the signs are? Would you know what to look for?

2. Aide in Escape

We hope that building a strong, knowledgeable network of people across Europe and around the world will help us prevent trafficking before it even begins. We never want another person to experience the trauma of trafficking, so we are equipping people with knowledge to recognize situations of trafficking and stop traffickers.

This happened when members of our team recognized an unsafe situation at a Romanian airport and prevented a trafficker from taking two girls out of the country!

Yet, we know this huge evil will not be stopped overnight and millions of survivors need to find freedom and total transformation!

So, the second key ability members of The Freedom Highway need is to aid a survivor in escaping when a situation of trafficking is identified.

How do you think you could position yourself as a safe person that a traumatized survivor could trust? If you said, “I don’t know,” you’re not alone. That’s why we need to train anti-trafficking advocates to know what to do and how to help!

3. Connect to Safety

Once a human trafficking survivor has escaped from her trafficker, this is not the end of the journey. It is the beginning of a long road to healing.

Survivors are in danger of their trafficker coming for them. They are seen as a valuable revenue stream and these criminals will often try to lure them. First of all, survivors need a safe place. We wish we could bring every Romanian survivor out there straight to the Sanctuary, but this is not possible. Many are in other countries and don’t have the proper paperwork to travel.

That’s why the Freedom Highway goes far beyond Romania. We know that Eastern Europe is the epicenter of human trafficking. 78% of those in slavery across Europe are from Romania!

We are helping members of the Freedom Highway across Europe understand how to connect survivors to a safe house. Survivors are at high risk for being re-victimized and we must make sure they stay safe!

4. Journey to the Sanctuary

All of the pieces come together to form a powerful anti-trafficking advocate when they know how to recognize trafficking, aid a survivor, connect her to safety, and journey with her.

Someone who has just escaped from human trafficking has big needs. She is likely battered and injured. She will need medical care. She hasn’t had consistent nutrition and she needs rest, food, and medicine for her body to begin to heal.

Her heart and soul are just as injured. She has experienced fear and pain at the hands of her trafficker and those who bought her “services.” She needs to feel safe and remain stable before she can come to The Sanctuary, a host family, or another place of safety.

When we train people to be a part of the Freedom Highway, it is important that they know trauma-informed methods so they don’t further wound a traumatized survivor.

When these pieces all come together, we have a powerful member of an alliance all across Europe working together to keep survivors safe and on the road to freedom!